Exploring DC and the Inauguration

After visiting New Jersey, I took the train to DC on Saturday the 10th. I was dreading having to lug my 2 huge suitcases around the city, but as soon as I got off the train, someone came and helped me and took my luggage to a taxi. When we stepped outside, he said "there's the capitol!" and I was like "Whaaaaaaaaaaat?" My cab driver was also really nice, and a little crazy. He sang songs the entire way, as we passed by all these famous monuments. I've been to DC before, but it was for my 7th grade trip and I don't remember anything, so I was amazing that all of these famous things were just chillin in the middle of the city.

I got the keys to my apartment--a converted hotel room complete with creepy painting, huge floral curtains, and a wall hair dryer--and moved in. Then met up with some other people from USC and went to dinner.

The next morning, I got up and decided to go on a run. I knew from a map GW had given us that the White House wasn't far, so I thought I'd try and find it. Turns out, it's about a mile away, and you can get really close to it! I took lots of BlackBerry pictures and ran all around the area. They were also already setting up for the inauguration parade, and the secret service was already all around.

Had my first experience at a DC bar that night. We have a bunch right around the corner. So much for not going out much this semester--and so much for saving money.

At orientation the next morning we met the rest of the people on our program. It's basically us, people with the Congressional Black Caucus, Native Americans, and then people from random areas all around the country.

We had our first internship class, and it sounded a lot harder than I was expecting.

I took the metro for the first time, to Pentagon City, and bought things for the apartment. The DC metro is amazing--it's really clean, easy to use, and you don't feel like people are going to throw you onto the tracks for walking to slowly or not knowing exactly where you're going like in New York.

Also went to Metro Center to get a metro card. Turns out there is a huge line because they are selling special edition Barack Obama inaugural metro cards. After waiting on line for so long, I felt like I had to get one, even though it cost and extra 5 bucks. So now I have a Barack Obama metro card. It's not even an attractive picture of him...

Went to my classes, and still can't decide if they are going to be easy or hard.

I also went to my internship, which I like so far. I feel like I'm going to get a lot out of it, even if it is a lot of hours for free. The other interns are grad students, which is a little intimidating, but also flattering that I got this internship.

Went on a tour of the capital with my program, and explored the underground congressional tunnels back to the metro to avoid the 4 degree weather. (Did I mention it's fucking cold here?!)

I went to Adam's Morgan for the first time that night. It's basically the row, but for people with jobs. It's a whole street full of bars, and everyone goes and bar hops. But instead of meeting frat guys, we met prosecutors for the Department of Justice and teachers and nuclear physicists. Even got business cards.

On Saturday I ran down to the Lincoln Memorial to see where the inauguration concert was going to be held. I ran all around the memorial, saw the WWII and Vietnam memorials, and a whole bunch of other small things there. They were doing a sound check for the concert, and I got to scope out the whole thing.

The next day, we headed over to the concert around 12:30, bundled up in just about every piece of clothing I own. The crowd was pretty ridiculous, but we lucked out and got through security really quickly. We made our way up to the front, but it was so crowded that we turned around and found way better spots farther back. Everyone was cheering for random things, like chanting "yes you can" to a girl who was trying to climb up a tree. The whole atmosphere was fun and happy. A guy next to us said that he thought DC was happier in general since the election.

On Monday, I went to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, right on the mall. People were already crowding the mall, and everyone was cheering and happy. After finding out that one senate office was possibly giving away inauguration tickets, we tried to sneak in to one of the buildings and score ourselves some closer tickets. Needless to say, security was a little better than that, although they did call up to Senator Kerry's office for us to see if we could get tickets.

My roommate got me a silver ticket for inauguration, and we checked out where we would be standing. I started getting really excited when I saw how close we were going to be.

On Monday night, my roommate and I went to bed around 11:30 so that we could wake up early and go to inauguration. At about 1:30, just as I had started to fall asleep, the fire alarm went off. I grabbed warmer clothes, and chocolate covered macadamia nuts, and we went downstairs after a lot of hesitation. After waiting for the elevator for while, we decided we should take the stairs in case it was a real fire. So we stood out in the cold in the freezing weather until we were let back in around 2:30. By that time I was wide awake from being in the cold and couldn't get back to sleep. My roommate left for inauguration around 3am, and I barely snoozed between then and when I got up at 6.

Dan, Mariel, and I made ourselves sandwiches and put on about a million layers and left for the mall. We were planning on walking, but the metro didn't look to crowded, so we went in. We somehow managed to get on a train, and after worrying that they weren't going to let us out at the right station because of the crowds, we somehow made it exactly where we wanted to be. They let everyone out for free because it was taking too long for everyone to swipe out of the metro.

After getting out of the station, some volunteers directed us to the left to the ticket holder section. We followed the huge crowd of people and got in what seemed to be a line. Dan and Mariel saved my place in line while I tried to figure out what was going on. What I found out was that there was this really long, snaking, extremely orderly line, but it just ended in a clump by the gate. So we decided to just get as close as possible to the front as we could. The crowd built up around us really, really quickly, and it became so crowded that you just kind of had to move where the crowd went. At the most, we moved a foot every 10 minutes. No one had any information, and we couldn't tell where we were going. People were trying to get information from people watching the news at home, or getting onto the internet on cell phones, but no one knew what was happening. The police didn't know either, and people started getting up on lamp poles and trying to see where we were going. From that, all we knew was that we were supposed to go to the left.

We were in this clump, not moving, for hours. We couldn't go anywhere, couldn't see where we were going, and started to think we weren't going to get in. The chants changed from "Obama" and "Yes we can" to "What's going on" and "Let us in." I had to abandon our bag of sandwiches because it was getting stuck and I just couldn't hold on. We kept checking our watches--8am turned into 9am turned into 10am and 10:20am, and we still weren't moving.

We moved up a few more feet, and could see the capitol at last. Dan got up on a barrier and actually saw where security was for the first time. We could see inside, and there was a lot of open space--they just weren't getting people through security. We somehow managed to get in a current of people that was moving slightly faster, and inched our way forward. And then, somehow, we got to security. We ran forward as far as we could, and staked out some spots on the left side behind the reflecting pool, where we could see both the capitol and the jumbo screen.

I was so happy that we managed to get in that it didn't really matter that 3 tall men were in front of us, blocking everyone's views. It was fun being in the crowd, hearing people's comments, cheering, chanting, getting to witness everything.

After Obama's speech, we walked on the reflecting pool, and went as close as we could to the capitol. We watched Bush's helicopter leave, and slid around on the reflecting pool. After everything was over, we decided to start our walk back.

We were planning on just walking down the mall. But no such luck. Random streets were blocked off everywhere, and even the secret service man I asked for directions didn't know how we could get back. People had stormed fences and we climbed over and through fences to get out of the mall and onto the street. On the street, there was such a huge crowd of people that the intersections were impossible to get through, with everyone trying to go a different direction. We were told that streets were closed off for the parade (even though I looked at a map of the parade route later, and it was no where near where we were), and were told to walk back to the metro station we had got out at in the morning. We decided that there was no way we were going to walk all that way back and then fight the crowds on the metro, so we just walked anywhere we could that was going even slightly in the right direction. We had to had to make huge detours and probably walked about 4 miles, even though it would've only been 2.5 normally. It was still freezing cold, but somehow we made it to the Washington memorial, and then to the WWII memorial, and then across the pond and to the GW campus.

We got home, made soup, got lots of blankets, and watched the parade from the pull-out couch. After standing in crowds and walking all over DC, lying down never felt so good.

We later found out just how lucky we had been to get inside. People with better tickets couldn't get in because security took so long, and the "lines" (aka mobs of people) were so disorganized. No one had any information, and people were being to go to the wrong places and to stand in the wrong lines. The whole thing was a complete mess, and no one knew what was going on. The fact that we got there at 7 and barely got in means that I'm sure thousands just in our line didn't get in. I think the news is way underreporting this--the Washington Post said that about 4,000 didn't get in, but it has to be much, much more than that. I'm so, so thankful that we got in to see it, but at the same time I feel like I didn't deserve it as much as some of the people that didn't get in. There were so many older people braving the crowds, some in wheelchairs, that I'm sure didn't make it in. It was the worst feeling when we thought we weren't going to make it, and I can't even imagine how disappointing it was for everyone that didn't.

Anyway, I love DC so far, and am excited for the rest of the adventures that I will have here.